The ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence outlines his top fears: North Korea, terrorism, Russia, China

ISIS. Russia. North Korea. The national-security picture is crowded and complex, and made even more so by questions about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. To shed light on these issues,
Adam Schiff,
ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke with Wall Street Journal Executive Washington Editor Gerald F. Seib. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation.

The biggest issues

MR. SEIB: We’re thinking about risk in a dangerous world. You think about it all the time because of your position on the Intelligence Committee. What are the one or two problems that you worry about among all the others?

REP. SCHIFF: I think in terms of the most profound crisis that we’re going to see within this president’s term is likely to be if North Korea gets to the point where they can marry a nuclear warhead and an intercontinental ballistic missile. They’re obviously progressing with the miniaturization of the nuclear devices and with their ballistic-missile technology. I do think the administration is right that China is the key. China doesn’t have complete control over North Korea, but they have more control than any other nation. And there’s a lot more they can do.

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I also worry from the terrorism point of view about any kind of attack that would bring about a fundamental change in America.

We have seen a number of attacks, some quite devastating. We just celebrated the terrible anniversary of the shooting in Orlando. But I still worry about the aviation threat. That is a predominant concern of mine. Not only because ISIS has gotten so heavily involved in this space but because al Qaeda remains pernicious and potent.

The broader challenges I think that we face are certainly Russia, but also the degree to which we are ceding leadership in Asia to China. The final point that I would make is that through all of my life I’ve lived in a world where freedom and democracy were on the rise. But we’ve reached an inflection point. It is a phenomenal challenge for the United States. It’s a time where we are needed more than ever in terms of being a defender of liberal democracy, and freedom of speech and association, and religion. This is not a time for us to lay down that mantle.

MR. SEIB: Let me draw you out a little bit more on the terrorist question. There is a sense when you watch what’s happening in Europe that as ISIS shrinks on the ground, that it’s sending the threat outward in the form of terrorism. Is that how you see it?

REP. SCHIFF: It is how I see it, but I don’t think people should lose hope about this. The reality is we have to eliminate this so-called caliphate. That is a necessary prerequisite to defeating this scourge. In the near term or midterm it might result in these foreign fighters coming back home, predominantly to Europe, and increasing the threat there and indirectly increasing the threat here. Nonetheless, we have to cut off the resources they can derive from the caliphate from taxing people, et cetera.

Related

Why have we been less subject to this violence? On the front end, we have far fewer people who have left the United States to join the fight. We also have a Muslim community far better integrated in the United States. We obviously don’t want to do anything to alienate or jeopardize that. We need good lines of communication between the Muslim community and law enforcement, and public-safety officials.

It’s unlikely we’re ever going to get to zero. We do need a very comprehensive approach to dealing with this. There’s certainly a strong military component in shrinking their ability to plot and plan. Intelligence and information sharing and our relationships with our partners elsewhere are vitally important. But it’s also in terms of online radicalism and lone attackers. It’s never going to be possible to prevent every single attack, unfortunately.

MR. SEIB: From what you’ve seen of the cyberthreat and the cyberdefenses of the United States from where you sit on the Intelligence Committee, how well positioned are we as a country and how well positioned are we as a government to help people in the private sector deal with the cyberthreat?

REP. SCHIFF: We are way behind in dealing with this problem. We need to, and we are trying to, improve our cyberdefenses, but one thing we have to recognize is our cyberdefenses are never going to be good enough.

When you take capable adversaries—like the Russians, for example—if the Russians want to hack into the DNC next year or three years from now, they will hack into the DNC, and they’ll get into the RNC, and they’ll get in my computer if they want to. They have the capacity to do it. And no matter how well you train your workforce—and obviously we’re all going to have to use best practices here—a determined adversary is going to get in.

ADAM SCHIFF | ‘I still worry about the aviation threat. That is a predominant concern of mine.’
Photo:
Paul Morse/Dow Jones

So there’s no cure with a software patch. The only real cure is twofold. We’ve got to educate our country and our public about what to expect, which is part of why I think the Russia investigation that we’re doing in the House and Senate, quite apart from what
Bob Mueller
is doing, is so important. What made the Russian attack so successful last year was that there was no consensus that we ought to reject that foreign interference.

And somehow we have to prepare the country for what they may see next. The Russians may go beyond what they did last year in dumping not only authentic stolen documents but forgeries along with it. The best defense is ultimately inoculation. We have to derive a consensus that whoever [a document release] helps and whoever it hurts, we will reject it.

Beyond that, we need a deterrent. I took issue with our lack of an adequate response when the North Koreans hacked Sony. I think the Russians were watching. The rest of the world was watching what we would do and what we wouldn’t.

Trump and Russia

MR. SEIB: From what you know right now, the core question in the Russia investigation obviously is collusion. Was there collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians of some variety? Right now, do you think there was collusion?

REP. SCHIFF: I think it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions. When I look at what [former FBI director
James Comey
] testified to, as a former prosecutor, I say, “That is all evidence of interference or obstruction.”

Whether it is sufficient evidence is another story. And of course it would need to be corroborated. But if I were prosecuting a case of obstruction and I sought to admit director Comey’s testimony, there’s not a judge in the land who would exclude it. It’s clearly relevant evidence. I think there’s relevant evidence on the issue of collusion that warrants our continued investigation.

I think the FBI began that investigation for a reason. I think they’re continuing it for a reason. We now have the added very important issue of whether there was any effort to obstruct that investigation. But I do think it’s too early to be drawing conclusions. I already see efforts to try to curtail the investigation.